"Of course. In their Kugelblitz. Most of my existence was spent within a few hundred Astronomical Units of that, on the Wheel."
He bared his teeth to indicate assent. "That was what the Great Disrupter was meant to be used on. On the Kugelblitz, annihilating the gravity that held it together and thus making the Foe fly apart into a thin, dispersed cloud of individual particles. Having lost the ability for collective action, they would no longer be a threat."
I could not help admiring the concept, but all I said was, "But then the weapon was never deployed?"
"No. Not against the Foe. We are a peaceable people, Marcus. We do not choose to destroy sentient life of any kind ... and also," he added, "it wasn't ready."
"Until Fomalhaut," I helped him along.
"Yes, until Fomalhaut. Once it was ready, some felt it to be necessary to try it out, and indeed it worked perfectly. You see," he said, now in full lecture mode, "when a star's gravity is nullified, it will explode from the pressure of its exceedingly densely packed center. That is not all, though. The worst-case estimate of the Stored Minds is that the detonation of any star within the Core could cause the loss of between ten and forty-four million lives, with another thirty to two hundred million suffering from property loss, environmental damage and/or physical injury. The reason for that—as," he added politely, though without slowing down, "I am sure you know—is that the fusion reaction which lights a star takes place in its core. The energy produced there, in the form of photons, is not immediately released to space. A star's interior is quite dense. Within it each photon is reflected many times on its way to the surface." He paused for effect. "The time this takes is of the order of a million years."
"Oh," I said, beginning to comprehend. But he went on:
"This of course means that the dispersed star will release all those photons at once, the ones near the surface and the ones just being generated in its core and all the ones in between. It will amount to—" he affected to hesitate a moment while he figured it out "—the release of one million years' worth of energy in the space of two to three hours. So, do you see, Marc? That much energy would probably destroy several nearby stellar systems, and in fact will do decreasing amounts of damage almost to the far periphery of the Core."
I tried not to show my embarrassment. "Thank you," I said, resolving to access some files on stellar dynamics as soon as possible.
Then he offered me the closest possible Heechee approximation of a smile. "But, of course," he said happily, "we do not know that this Wan has come into possession of one of these weapons. Indeed, we do not even know that he is definitely coming in our direction. Or that he would know how to deploy the device in any case, being formerly an organic human."
That was not as reassuring to me as it appeared to be to him, and I suppose my expression showed it. He asked, "Have I offended you, Marc?"
"You might have, if I had ever been an organic human," I said, and he gave me a nearly human grin.
"Then," he said, "let us talk of more pleasant subjects. Like food! I know how good your organic meals were; can you do as well when they are only simulated?"
"Better," I told him.
"Then," he said with sudden enthusiasm, "you could start, please, with one of those cold soups, and then—do you know what I've been thinking about? That Philippine dish you used to make, sour fish with ginger and bitter melon. Or perhaps that Thai salad with water chestnuts, unripe papaya and crushed peanuts? Can you do that?"
I promised that I could and would, and bade him good-bye. But when I returned to my own surround—my giant kitchen, with half a dozen sous-chefs working away—I was a good deal less cheerful than I had been when I left.
14
Motherhood
I
Estrella never seemed to get tired of Stan's company, and Stan certainly never did of Estrella's. Still, there was a whole unexplored world out there for them. Little by little they nibbled at it—a visit to the institute, a walk around the valley between it and them. Sometimes they went out alone, sometimes with one of the Heechee. The male named Yellow Jade was particularly good company, because he had a real, and unHeecheelike, fondness for the outdoors. "Look," he would say, delicately lifting a fern frond to reveal a pulsing little mass of pale pink jelly. "This by name is called—" a chirp and something like a sneeze. "His species by diet eat—" another unpronouncable Heechee name "—and in turn self is eaten by—" a third name, this one more promising for Stan because it only had one syllable.
He tried his luck. "Fkweesh?" he ventured.
Yellow Jade looked stricken. "Is far better thing if you not do that," he advised. "Look, here is other different creature, not so interesting but somewhat." And he showed them one creature after another—the flowers that actually were voracious little animals, the tree snakes that glided from branch to branch, the ugly, sharp-toothed fish that lived in the little pond—until even Estrella was beginning to yawn. Then he did the best thing of all. Which was to escort them back to their apartment. "Because," he told them earnestly, "is known to us your species enjoys to couple even when female not fertile. Or, in your individual case, when already made fertilized." Which made Stan grin, because it was true enough.
It wasn't all sex, though. They found plenty else to do with their time. They played word games, considered names for the baby, discussed Hypatia's failings as a cook, chatted with Salt on the lookplate, played with those same lookplates in some of the many other ways they could be used.
They even found a news program on one of the plates—human news, from Outside!—delivered by a human announcer whom Estrella thought exceptionally good-looking. Stan couldn't see that at all. He didn't care much for the program, either, because the announcer seemed to be in a constant, unwinnable race to keep up with the things that were happening in the outside galaxy. Each time he appeared he seemed farther behind. Elections came and were replaced by new ones like the flickering of fireflies. Disasters were healed by the time he finished describing them. And when there was something that sounded really interesting—what did he mean when he spoke of a Foe expedition to the Lesser Magellanic Cloud?—there never seemed to be any explanation or follow-up.
But it still struck Stan as of great interest. "A human news broadcast!" he marveled. "Why, Strell, that has to mean that there are a lot of us in the Core now!"
She managed not to laugh. "There sure are, hon. Weren't you listening when Yellow Jade showed me how to access some of the others on the small plate?"
He looked guilty. "I might've been resting."
"Oh, right," she said, remembering. "You snored a lot, too. Anyway, right here on this planet there's Alice and Sandra—she's machine-stored, though—and there's also Beth and Keichiko and Maureen and Daisy, but it's harder to reach them because they're on other planets. And there are lots of others, but some of them don't speak English, and some don't want to."
Stan blinked at that, was more startled still when she told him that, near as she could estimate, there were now several thousand other humans in the Core.
"Where'd all those people come from?" he marveled.
Estrella said wisely, "It's the time differential, Stan. Like this Bill Tartch, trying to keep up with the news. Things move a lot faster Outside. There's plenty of time to emigrate."